Facebook ads are radically different from mainstream media and other digital platform ads. They allow advertisers to target only those people who are most likely to be interested and to find value in the offer. And they do this across multiple platforms and devices using their Facebook profile as the unifier.

Core Audiences use demographic information such as age, location, languages, interests and behaviors. This is the most basic audience format, and when it dovetails with known customer personas can be highly effective.

There are three Facebook Custom Audiences which use a combination of various insight and data sources. A basic one uses a company’s own CRM, POS or mailing lists. Using the Facebook Pixel, a bit of code, Website Custom Audiences recognize and track Facebook users as they journey from page to page. Then, specific ads are served depending on where visitors are in the sales funnel. Mobile App Custom Audience takes the same approach using SDK, Facebook’s software development kit to track an app user’s journey. The social network knows how each person uses Facebook, and the Engagement Custom Audience uses this information as targeting criteria.

Lookalike audiences are based on the audience profiles described above. Using a core or custom audience Facebook identifies the common qualities of the people in it and targets people who are similar.

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Because Facebook ads are so highly targetable, they are extremely cost efficient. With the pay-per-click model, the advertiser is not charged for people who have seen the ad, only for those who have clicked the link. According to AdEspresso, the average cost-per-click for Canadian advertisers is 20 cents. Another option is the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) payment type. These tend to be lower in cost than CPC so work well with awareness objectives.

Facebook ads are highly controllable too thanks to easy to the easy to use Ads Manager dashboard and mobile apps. They all work across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network, and can be used to track ad performance, edit and revise ads, budgets and schedules.

E-commerce company Mapiful.com, which allows customers to create personalized keepsake prints based on the places they love, increased Black Friday sales 3.5 times by using lookalike audiences to reach international markets.

I’ve been helping companies leverage Facebook ads for about 10 years now. Schedule a call with me to find how to integrate Facebook advertising into your marketing and sales plans.